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AFL's success in black and white

Mark Hawthorne

WITH a new season looming for Australia's biggest sporting codes, the rush is on for clubs to land sponsors before the opening round.

The Western Bulldogs are the latest to ink a deal, re-signing Mission Foods until 2014. The uniform deal, estimated at a little over $1.5 million a year, will help the Bulldogs as they struggle under $5 million of debt. But it will also provide a marketing boon for Mission Foods, as AFL football dominates the battle for corporate dollars, crowds and viewer eyeballs.

A report into sporting media coverage has been compiled by independent firm Repucom, and it shows that Australia's home-grown football code has built a lead over the NRL, A-League and SuperRugby competitions when it comes to providing value for sponsors. Last year Mission benefited from $5.5 million of media exposure from its sponsorship of the Bulldogs, a figure helped by a much-reported spat with player Jason Akermanis.

Bulldogs president David Smorgon was upbeat about the record sponsorship deal yesterday, but also recognised the return provided by his club.

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''We believe our partnership has created great brand value for Mission,'' Smorgon said.

The AFL was the most-watched football competition on Australian television last year, with an average of 14.64 million viewers per club. That compares with 13.81 million viewers per club for the NRL.

With free-to-air television dominated by the AFL and NRL, rivals are left to the limited audience of pay-TV. As a result, A-League soccer clubs average 1.5 million viewers per season, and SuperRugby clubs just 958,000.

Repucom's 9th annual Football Benchmarking report compiles data on the exposure major club sponsors receive on television, in print and in ''peripheral'' forms of media, such as the internet.

The television data calculates the number of viewers per match, the location of brand logos in a TV screen, and the amount of time those logos can be seen.

Its latest report shows that a presence on free-to-air television and high levels of print media coverage are crucial for sponsors.

The point is demonstrated by Collingwood, among the most-watched and reported clubs of any code in the country.

Almost 28 million viewers tuned in to Collingwood matches on TV last season.

That's more than the total Australian audience of every A-League and SuperRugby match combined.

No other AFL or NRL club can make such a boast.

The most-watched NRL club was St George Illawarra, with 23 million viewers for the year.

When match attendance is included, the AFL's dominance is even greater.

The AFL averaged 918,000 spectators per club last season, and the league provided the 14 most-watched football teams in the country.

Collingwood drew almost 1.7 million fans to its matches. Four other AFL clubs - St Kilda, Geelong, Carlton and Essendon - also drew a million or more spectators through the turnstiles last season.

The average NRL attendance was 436,000 spectators, less than half that of an AFL club.

The A-League averaged 297,000 spectators per club, and the Super-15 competition 166,000.

According to Repucom, AFL clubs generate an average $3.1 million of media coverage for their sponsors, compared with $2.97 million for the NRL.

More than half that media value for AFL sponsors comes from the TV exposure, and a quarter from print media.

Such is the might of the Magpies, the club generated $6.3 million of media exposure for sponsor Emirates last year and a further $5.7 million for Aussie Home loans - ranking it No. 1 and 2 in the country. Little wonder that Emirates' head of global sponsorship and events, Boutros Boutros, said the Dubai airline was ''very happy'' with its long-term deal with the Magpies.

According to Repucom, Collingwood's jumper is also the most valuable single football asset in the country.